Bay Photo Metal Prints

If you've never seen a metal print before, they're really, really cool and really interesting. There's tons of finishes that you can get from them, and Bay Photo is actually kind of like, the name attached to metal prints. Any photographer who's a professional who is an outdoor photographer, if you're like, hey, I, you know what, I'm looking at printing my own stuff. Maybe I wanna look at what something looks like first. I've seen these metal prints around.

Who should I go to? Every single one of 'em is gonna say Bay Photo. They are a great company. They have high quality prints. They're extremely fast in they're turnaround.

I've had prints that I've submitted to them to be printed, and within two days they're already being sent to my house. So we're talking about their metal prints. I actually have a metal print behind me. This was the Eiffel Tower. But metal prints are just really cool 'cause they have different finishes on them that actually reflect light in a very interesting way based on the finish that you have.

This is just a flat, no finish on it, sheer metal. And a lot of the lights reflect differently as the light changes outside my window, which is a cool feature that I like on a lot of finishes. Not every finish is gonna have that feature. But what I think is cool about these is especially the mounting. You're gonna get a gap between your wall and the actual print.

And I'll show you what I mean here because I had Bay Photo actually print up some mocks from some of the recent photos that I have. And these are massive. These are really big prints. So you're gonna get a print basically like this that has a lot of detail on it and that has any scene that you basically want to produce on it. So this is from Zion National Park, a massive metal print.

And this was from, it's not Angels Overlook exactly 'cause that's a really dangerous hike, and I have kids now, so I wanna stay away from that one. But it's a similar overlook that you can get to that is much less dangerous. But this was just a really cool scene. And they were like, "Hey, what do you want on a metal print?" And I was like, "I know exactly what I want." And why did I pick this one to show you? I'm actually gonna set it down 'cause it is massive.

I picked this scene in particular because it has a lot of features on it. Not only color, but it also has a lot of different light examples that you can see from it. So if I look at it on this side, I have a lot of greens down in here. I have reds and oranges and browns. In the sky, I have some blues.

And then dappled down in the landscape, they're actually some highlights that I blended in from multiple different exposures from when I shot this photo. Now, why did I choose this one? Because of that color and light difference that you can see. This has many different colors in it, and it has many different tones within it as well. So these metal prints from Bay Photo can handle any kind of color, any kind of tone that you can throw at it, and it does it very well.

Like, I'm within just a couple inches of this, and from the detail in the foreground to the detail in the background, it's tack sharp all the way through. And yeah, you have to do that in camera, but printing it is another element that you wanna be sure that you get right because print sometimes can have some diffraction in it and cause your hard edges to be a little bit hazy. Bay Photo does a tremendous job of getting the detail exactly right, exactly where you want it to be within an outdoor photograph scene like this. So, you know, if you are at a Grand Vista overlook like this where you have a lot of detail throughout the entire scene, you have light highlights through the valley and storm clouds overhead, you're gonna wanna go with a company like Bay Photo because they're a trusted brand that is known for their metal prints. Now, I mentioned the mount on these.

What's cool about these is they have a mount on the back, but it's also this ridge right here that separates it about an inch from your wall, and then you can also hang with clips that are built into the mount on the back. So hanging these is super easy when you want to put 'em up on your wall. But you know, you can, they're flat enough and clean enough that you can use something like a command strip to do the exact same thing if you want to go that route. Now, you may be saying, okay that's one example. Fantastic.

I'm not around red rock and storm clouds. Well, you know, I got another example for you that's completely different. And I wanted it completely different for a reason because I wanted to show you how their color can handle different scenes like this. So with another metal print with a different finish, this is a high gloss finish on this print, so you can see a lot of light reflection off of it. But I chose a high gloss on this photo in particular because of the color and the vibrant greens that were in this print.

What I love about this is that, number one, it is that metal print look. Number two, you get a high gloss look, and the colors and details are tack sharp in this one too. But you have a different framing option here. So you have a built in black frame on the side that just makes this entire scene pop a little bit more. I think if you had just had like, the metal print on this kind of photo, I don't think it would've popped that much.

But you can add a lot of different framing options to your images to make the colors in your photo that much better and stand out a lot more. You know, brighter photos and brighter, vibrant colors like this, you want a darker offset on the outside 'cause those, the detail is then brought to the photo itself. The eye is drawn to the brightest part of the photo, so you wanna think about that in your prints and mounting as well. And even a print like this, they have mounting options on the back where it's just really, really sturdy. And then you have an easily adjustable and hangable wire on the back too that allows you to hang those.

So these are really cool prints. I'm gonna be putting these up on my wall behind me too in my office, and I love the way they look. But I do wanna show you an example of some of the finishes that you can get from Bay Photo because there're a vast array of differences that you can get within a metal print. And they were like, "Hey, how do we show this best?" And I said, "Probably the same image on every single kind of finish." So we have finishes that go from high gloss, which for me, color and high gloss go hand in hand. So if I have vibrant colors, I want a high gloss.

They have, you know, textured metal prints. There's a lot that you can do with these prints. Here's, you know, just your sheer satin that reflects a lot of light that you can see. That's like the one that I have on the wall behind me, just the sheer metal look to them. And they all make your photos look a little bit different.

So I always say like, when you're going through these, like, this is your main satin. If I'm going through these, I'm asking myself what do I want my print to look like, and then how can I pick a finish that would match that? So here's a sheer gloss. If I'm doing something with a lot of vibrant color, I'm gonna go with a high gloss look. But for something like this, I think like, a mid gloss would be good 'cause I don't want a lot of light reflected off of every single print that I have.

A mid gloss is gonna have more of a matte finish to it. Then you have, you know, another high gloss here, and then a sheer gloss to finish it up. So you have a lot of options that you want. For a lot of detailed images and a lot of images that have bright highlights, maybe you're shooting a cityscape at night. I'm gonna go for that sheer satin because that, as the light hits it differently, the lights are gonna reflect different angles and tones that are coming in on it.

So you need to ask yourself when you are getting prints made, what finished do I want on them, and what company do I wanna go with? And if you're doing metal prints, I mean, really honestly, any kind of print, I would go with Bay Photo. And that's what I send to clients who either buy, you know, prints from me, or if they're buying something like an NFT from me, and I want to have it printed for them, I'll just send them a drop ship from Bay Photo. That way it can go straight to them, and I'm not the middle man on that print. It's quick for them, and it saves me money having a drop ship offer for them that they can quickly get their print directly to them.

So with Bay Photo, I think one of the cool things is they give you these options as a photographer. They know photographers. They deal with photographers all the time. And to wrap up this about Bay Photo, and before we get to any questions, if you have any questions on printing, please let me know. Bay Photo, when they send these to you, these things are shipped in like, Fort Knox boxes.

So I was actually trying to film this, but I wasn't fast enough. So when this box came, I propped it up on the back of my couch. It fell over. Like, I'm terrible with anything that I buy, obviously. Broken gear and prints and things like that.

So it falls over. I'm like, oh great, so they're gonna have to send me more. And then my daughter, who just turned two yesterday, just like, jumps on it and starts hopping on the box. And I was like, this is fantastic. Let's open it up and see what happened.

And these have so much padding, so much cardboard. They're taped really nicely to the cardboard for extra padding. And that's what makes these boxes basically indestructible. You don't need to worry about your prints getting damaged in the shipping process. And if you do have a damaged product, they're gonna take care of you.

So they're a really great company for any of your print needs. And like I said, Leah, I would love to take any print questions or any other questions that people have. We've got one right off the bat for prints. And a couple backing up to the previous products you showcased. But first, let's stay on the prints with Rochelle's question.

So you kind of answered part of it. She wanted to know if they have glossy, et cetera, but specifically, are these metal prints good Milky Way photos? And if so, what type of surface would you recommend based on the wide variety of finishes that you just featured? Yeah, Milky Way is a great question because there's so much difference in light there. You have bright highlights of the actual core of the Milky Way, and then you have like, basically blacks on the outside where the night sky is.

I think these are great for night skies. It kind of depends on what you wanna get out of it. Do you want a lot of that light reflected differently with different angles of light? Or do you want just a high gloss option? For me, since there is a lot of like, deep, rich black tones within a Milky Way photo, but also a lot of color tones within those as well, I would probably go for like, a high gloss to a mid gloss option.

Probably a mid gloss more than a high because you do get more of a flat matter reflection. And the reason I like that is because a lot of reflection is gonna come off just of a dark black edge or a large portion that's black of your image. If you get that mid gloss, you're gonna reduce the reflection on that, but you're also gonna keep that glossy look that a Milky Way can have. So you're getting a lot of different colors that can be very vibrant in the night sky, but you're getting a lot of deep, rich colors as well. And I really think that mid gloss is gonna look good for those.

So that's probably what I would steer you toward. The framed photo. So I believe it was the one of the river with the black frame around it. Rochelle wants to know, is that considered a float frame? Because I know that's what's featured in our sweepstakes.

Do you have an example of that if that's not it? So the float frame would be the other photo that I have, and that's the one with the gap on the back here. 'Cause you do have that. It does float an inch from the wall where you mount it where you can't see those edges. Like, you can see in the Paris picture over my shoulder, like, it has that shadow behind it.

It looks like it's floating off of the wall. That's what this one is, and it'll do the exact same thing. But that has an inch mount on the back that makes it look like it's floating off of the wall. And if you don't like frames, that's a great option. If you do like frames and you do wanna frame, I just wanted to show the other one to help you see that they have other options if you're into frames and you wanna use those to your advantage.

Okay, I'm gonna ask you one more question here before I let you move on to the next thing you would like to feature. I also do have a couple more general questions that have been sliding in. If we have time at the end, you let me know when we can get to some of those as well. Sure. But this one, Nora comes in with a question about Bay Photos.

How is Bay Photos to use for triptych or on canvas? Can you speak to either of those? I've never used the other one, but I have used them for canvas, and it does very well. I've used other companies for canvas prints, and one of my complaints about them is that a lot of times the resolution doesn't look as sharp when it's printed on canvas because you do have a lot of that texture on there. And over time, the edge where they wrap the canvas around the framing, the wooden framing that's on the structure of the canvas frame, it wears and it rubs off.

I haven't seen that with Bay Photo. The resolution is always really sharp on those. So I have seen and used them for canvas prints, and I would have no issue like, just drop shipping a canvas print to a client from Bay Photo and not even laying my own eyes on it. I know the quality would be there. So Jim wants to know if Bay Photo prints on metal for custom sizes.

I believe they do have set sizes for their metal prints, but there are numerous set sizes. Like, you'll probably find what you need or somewhere within a couple inches of what you need. But I'm sure if you emailed customer service, that they do print custom sizes. But that would be something for them to reach out to on their contact link on their website or some customer service questions. You know, even if you're looking through the sizes that they do offer, look through those first because maybe there is a size where it's one to two inches off, and you could just go with that one rather than paying the custom print price.

But I'm sure they would work something out with you if you did want to do that.